Quantum vacuum emission from a refractive-index front (2015)
We analytically calculate the first laboratory-frame spectra of spontaneous emission at an optical event horizon that feature contributions from modes of positive as well as negative Klein-Gordon norm. We find that regimes with black- and white hole horizon, as well as horizonless, conditions are realised simultaneously, which opens up the possibility to study quantum emission in distinct regimes with and without horizons.
The influence of spacetime curvature on quantum emission in optical analogues to gravity (2018)
We present an analytical calculation of the mode conversion on curved spacetimes in an optical analogue to gravity, aiming to identify signatures of quantum emission in experimental observables. Due to dispersion, the radiation is not described by a single temperature. Indeed, spacetime curvature varies as a function of frequency and we use this to demonstrate its influence on the emission: mode conversion is dominated by the presence of horizons. This enables us to find specificities of the Hawking effect at the horizon compared to horizonless emission.
Negative Frequency at the horizon (2018)
My PhD dissertation, published as a book via the Springer These Prize. I provide a primer to the analogue gravity programme. I then introduce theoretical advances on the analytical and numerical calculation of the scattering of quantum field modes at an event horizon in dispersive media. I also present an experiment aimed at observing the scattering of a monochromatic coherent mode at an event horizon in an optical fibre.